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TPR11 Excerpt: The Symposium by R.J. Anderson

One of Maddon’s favorite sayings goes like this, “Tell me what you think, not what you heard.” This statement implies free will exists and hive talk is unprogressive. It is an interesting statement for a baseball manager to make to his players and coaches given his title. Baseball managers rarely have free will. Physically they are free to do as they please, but spiritually they know a movement that strays from managerial uniformity –the book—and fails is one that will create more trouble than it might be worth.

To be a manager is to accept that everyone that has ever touched a baseball bat or glove will believe he or she is smarter than you are. How do they know what they know? That information usually comes from a loved one who taught them the game: a father, a brother, maybe a cousin or a friend, sometimes the announcers and writers that surrounded their impressionable youth.